Letters, writings, quotes, etc. ABOUT Charles Dickens

[Kim]

George Gissing

The thing that drove Dickens forward into a form of art for which he was not really suited, and at the same time caused us to remember him, was simply the fact that he was a moralist, the consciousness of ‘having something to say’. He is always preaching a sermon, and that is the final secret of his inventiveness. For you can only create if you can care. Types like Squeers and Micawber could not have been produced by a hack writer looking for something to be funny about. A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at. There is always room for one more custard pie.


When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer. I feel this very strongly with Swift, with Defoe, with Fielding, Stendhal, Thackeray, Flaubert, though in several cases I do not know what these people looked like and do not want to know. What one sees is the face that the writer ought to have. Well, in the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens's photographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty, with a small beard and a high colour. He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.

George Gissing

[Kim]

G. K. Chesterton

"That Dickens will have a high place in permanent literature there is, I imagine, no prig surviving to deny. But though all prediction is in the dark, I would devote this chapter to suggesting that his place in nineteenth-century England will not only be high, but altogether the highest. At a certain period of his contemporary fame, an average Englishman would have said that there were at that moment in England about five or six able and equal novelists. He could have made a list, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, perhaps more. Forty years or more have passed and some of them have slipped to a lower place. Some would now say that the highest platform is left to Thackeray and Dickens; some to Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot; some to Dickens, Thackeray, and Charlotte Brontë. I venture to offer the proposition that when more years have passed and more weeding has been effected, Dickens will dominate the whole England of the nineteenth century; he will be left on that platform alone.


The hour of absinthe is over. We shall not be much further troubled with the little artists who found Dickens too sane for their sorrows and too clean for their delights. But we have a long way to travel before we get back to what Dickens meant: and the passage is along a rambling English road, a twisting road such as Mr. Pickwick travelled. But this at least is part of what he meant; that comradeship and serious joy are not interludes in our travel; but that rather our travels are interludes in comradeship and joy, which through God shall endure for ever. The inn does not point to the road; the road points to the inn. And all roads point at last to an ultimate inn, where we shall meet Dickens and all his characters: and when we drink again it shall be from the great flagons in the tavern at the end of the world. "

G. K. Chesterton

[Kim]

Jules Verne


“For me, the works of Charles Dickens stand alone, dwarfing all others by their amazing power and felicity of expression. What humor and what exquisite pathos are to be found contrasted in his pages! How the figures seem actually to live, and their printed utterances to become transformed into audible speech! I have read and reread his masterpieces again and again...”

Notice the following (quite rare) authorial acknowledgment in Le Rayonvert, as two of the novel’s principal protagonists are being described: “Who could one better compare them to...if not these two charitable business men—so goodhearted, so devoted to each other, so affectionate—the brothers Cheeryble from the city of London, two of the most perfect characters to emerge from Dickens’ imagination!...It would be impossible to find a more just resemblance, and should I be accused of having borrowed their characterization from the pages of Nicholas Nickleby, I believe nobody will be grudge this loan”.

Jules Verne

[Kim]

Vincent Van Gogh


".........This week I bought a new 6-penny edition of Christmas carol and Haunted man by Dickens (London Chapman and Hall) with about 7 illustrations by Barnard, for example, a junk shop among others. I find all of Dickens beautiful, but those two tales — I’ve re-read them almost every year since I was a boy, and they always seem new to me. Barnard has understood Dickens well. Lately I again saw photographs after Black and White drawings by B., a series of characters from Dickens. I saw Mrs Gamp, Little Dorrit, Sikes, Sydney Carton, and several others.

They’re a few figures worked up to a very high standard, very important, treated like cartoons. In my view there’s no other writer who’s as much a painter and draughtsman as Dickens."

....."There is in him a painter, and an English painter. No mind, I believe, has ever imagined in more precise detail or with greater energy, every part and every colour of a painting ... Dickens has the passion and the patience of his nation’s painters; he counts the details, one by one, he notes the different colours of old tree-trunks; he sees the split barrel, the broken, greenish cobblestones, the crevices in damp walls; he distinguishes the unusual smells they give off; he notes the size of patches of moss, he reads the names of schoolchildren inscribed on the door and dwells on the shape of the letters ... He’ll lose himself, like his country’s painters, in the minute and passionate observation of small things; he will never have any love for beautiful forms or beautiful colours.’ "

Vincent Van Gogh

[Peter]

I have often been told that the Gissing biography on Dickens is very good. After reading these entries I think it about time I DO read it.

Thanks Kim.

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "Vincent Van Gogh


".........This week I bought a new 6-penny edition of Christmas carol and Haunted man by Dickens (London Chapman and Hall) with about 7 illustrations by Barnard, for example, a j..."

What a wonderful commentary from Van Gogh. I have read somewhere that the painting done after Dickens's death titled "The Empty Chair" ( could it be I read it here somewhere) was an inspiration for Van Gogh. In many of his paintings there is an empty chair and Van Gogh attributed them to his experience of seeing the Dickens painting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknew...

[John]

Peter wrote: "I have often been told that the Gissing biography on Dickens is very good. After reading these entries I think it about time I DO read it.

Thanks Kim."

I read the Gissing bio, Peter. It is excellent. It reads like a post-modern work, even though it was written near the end of the Victorian era.

[Peter]

John wrote: "Peter wrote: "I have often been told that the Gissing biography on Dickens is very good. After reading these entries I think it about time I DO read it.

Thanks Kim."

I read the Gissing bio, Peter..."

Thanks John.

[Everyman]

George Orwell

Too long to quote in full (Goodreads has limit). First few paragraphs quoted here, citation added at end.

Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey was a species of theft, if you come to think of it.
When Chesterton wrote his introductions to the Everyman Edition of Dickens's works, it seemed quite natural to him to credit Dickens with his own highly individual brand of medievalism, and more recently a Marxist writer, Mr. T. A. Jackson, has made spirited efforts to turn Dickens into a blood-thirsty revolutionary. The Marxist claims him as ‘almost’ a Marxist, the Catholic claims him as ‘almost’ a Catholic, and both claim him as a champion of the proletariat (or ‘the poor’, as Chesterton would have put it). On the other hand, Nadezhda Krupskaya, in her little book on Lenin, relates that towards the end of his life Lenin went to see a dramatized version of The Cricket on the Hearth, and found Dickens's ‘middle-class sentimentality’ so intolerable that he walked out in the middle of a scene.
Taking ‘middle-class’ to mean what Krupskaya might be expected to mean by it, this was probably a truer judgement than those of Chesterton and Jackson. But it is worth noticing that the dislike of Dickens implied in this remark is something unusual. Plenty of people have found him unreadable, but very few seem to have felt any hostility towards the general spirit of his work. Some years later Mr. Bechhofer Roberts published a full-length attack on Dickens in the form of a novel (This Side Idolatry), but it was a merely personal attack, concerned for the most part with Dickens's treatment of his wife. It dealt with incidents which not one in a thousand of Dickens's readers would ever hear about, and which no more invalidates his work than the second-best bed invalidates Hamlet. All that the book really demonstrated was that a writer's literary personality has little or nothing to do with his private character. It is quite possible that in private life Dickens was just the kind of insensitive egoist that Mr. Bechhofer Roberts makes him appear. But in his published work there is implied a personality quite different from this, a personality which has won him far more friends than enemies. It might well have been otherwise, for even if Dickens was a bourgeois, he was certainly a subversive writer, a radical, one might truthfully say a rebel. Everyone who has read widely in his work has felt this. Gissing, for instance, the best of the writers on Dickens, was anything but a radical himself, and he disapproved of this strain in Dickens and wished it were not there, but it never occurred to him to deny it. In Oliver Twist, Hard Times, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Dickens attacked English institutions with a ferocity that has never since been approached. Yet he managed to do it without making himself hated, and, more than this, the very people he attacked have swallowed him so completely that he has become a national institution himself. In its attitude towards Dickens the English public has always been a little like the elephant which feels a blow with a walking-stick as a delightful tickling. Before I was ten years old I was having Dickens ladled down my throat by schoolmasters in whom even at that age I could see a strong resemblance to Mr. Creakle, and one knows without needing to be told that lawyers delight in Sergeant Buzfuz and that Little Dorrit is a favourite in the Home Office. Dickens seems to have succeeded in attacking everybody and antagonizing nobody. Naturally this makes one wonder whether after all there was something unreal in his attack upon society. Where exactly does he stand, socially, morally, and politically? As usual, one can define his position more easily if one starts by deciding what he was not.

Full cite:
http://www.online-literature.com/orwe...

[John]

Interestingly enough, while not exact quotes: I've encountered two writers who consider OMF to be either his best work or their favorite of his works: Jane Smiley and Norrie Epstein.

Both published extensive books on CD, and if you look at the comments, OMF ranks his best.

Smiley went on to say there is not a bad sentence in the entire novel.

I will say that comments like these warm my heart.

[Everyman]

John wrote: "Smiley went on to say there is not a bad sentence in the entire novel."

Seems like we need a thread to select "the worst sentence in OMF."

[Mary Lou]

Everyman wrote: "John wrote: "Smiley went on to say there is not a bad sentence in the entire novel."

Seems like we need a thread to select "the worst sentence in OMF.""

I vote for any time an adult says boofer.

[Everyman]

Mary Lou wrote: "I vote for any time an adult says boofer.
."

Or how about the 400th time Jenny Wren complains about her legs and back? When is enough enough?

[John]

I find it interesting that two writers who wrote studies of Dickens find OMF to be their favorite of Dickens' canon.

Rather effusive praise, too.

I think what draws their admiration and praise is that they consider OMF to be a "modern novel." They view the work as ahead of its time.

What I have not, though, ascertained from them is the aspects that give the novel a modern flair.

[Kim]

San Francisco Alta California, February 5, 1868


MARK TWAIN

I only heard him read once. It was in New York, last week. I had a seat about the middle of Steinway Hall, and that was rather further away from the speaker than was pleasant or profitable.

Promptly at 8 P.M., unannounced, and without waiting for any stamping or clapping of hands to call him out, a tall, "spry," (if I may say it,) thin-legged old gentleman, gotten up regardless of expense, especially as to shirt-front and diamonds, with a bright red flower in his button-hole, gray beard and moustache, bald head, and with side hair brushed fiercely and tempestuously forward, as if its owner were sweeping down before a gale of wind, the very Dickens came! He did not emerge upon the stage -- that is rather too deliberate a word -- he strode. He strode -- in the most English way and exhibiting the most English general style and appearance -- straight across the broad stage, heedless of everything, unconscious of everybody, turning neither to the right nor the left -- but striding eagerly straight ahead, as if he had seen a girl he knew turn the next corner. He brought up handsomely in the centre and faced the opera glasses. His pictures are hardly handsome, and he, like everybody else, is less handsome than his pictures. That fashion he has of brushing his hair and goatee so resolutely forward gives him a comical Scotch-terrier look about the face, which is rather heightened than otherwise by his portentous dignity and gravity. But that queer old head took on a sort of beauty, bye and bye, and a fascinating interest, as I thought of the wonderful mechanism within it, the complex but exquisitely adjusted machinery that could create men and women, and put the breath of life into them and alter all their ways and actions, elevate them, degrade them, murder them, marry them, conduct them through good and evil, through joy and sorrow, on their long march from the cradle to the grave, and never lose its godship over them, never make a mistake! I almost imagined I could see the wheels and pulleys work. This was Dickens -- Dickens. There was no question about that, and yet it was not right easy to realize it. Somehow this puissant god seemed to be only a man, after all. How the great do tumble from their high pedestals when we see them in common human flesh, and know that they eat pork and cabbage and act like other men.

Mr. Dickens had a table to put his book on, and on it he had also a tumbler, a fancy decanter and a small bouquet. Behind him he had a huge red screen -- a bulkhead -- a sounding-board, I took it to be -- and overhead in front was suspended a long board with reflecting lights attached to it, which threw down a glory upon the gentleman, after the fashion in use in the picture-galleries for bringing out the best effects of great paintings. Style! -- There is style about Dickens, and style about all his surroundings.

He read David Copperfield. He is a bad reader, in one sense -- because he does not enunciate his words sharply and distinctly -- he does not cut the syllables cleanly, and therefore many and many of them fell dead before they reached our part of the house. [I say "our" because I am proud to observe that there was a beautiful young lady with me -- a highly respectable young white woman.] I was a good deal disappointed in Mr. Dickens' reading -- I will go further and say, a great deal disappointed. The Herald and Tribune critics must have been carried away by their imaginations when they wrote their extravagant praises of it. Mr. Dickens' reading is rather monotonous, as a general thing; his voice is husky; his pathos is only the beautiful pathos of his language -- there is no heart, no feeling in it -- it is glittering frostwork; his rich humor cannot fail to tickle an audience into ecstasies save when he reads to himself. And what a bright, intelligent audience he had! He ought to have made them laugh, or cry, or shout, at his own good will or pleasure -- but he did not. They were very much tamer than they should have been.

He pronounced Steerforth "St'yaw-futh." This will suggest to you that he is a little Englishy in his speech. One does not notice it much, however. I took two or three notes on a card; by reference to them I find that Pegotty's anger when he learned the circumstance of Little Emly's disappearance, was "excellent acting -- full of spirit;" also, that Pegotty's account of his search for Emly was "bad;" and that Mrs. Micawber's inspired suggestions as to the negotiation of her husband's bills, was "good;" (I mean, of course, that the reading was;) and that Dora the child-wife, and the storm at Yarmouth, where Steerforth perished, were not as good as they might have been. Every passage Mr. D. read, with the exception of those I have noted, was rendered with a degree of ability far below what his reading reputation led us to expect. I have given "first impressions." Possibly if I could hear Mr. Dickens read a few more times I might find a different style of impressions taking possession of me. But not knowing anything about that, I cannot testify.

[Mary Lou]

Kim wrote: "San Francisco Alta California, February 5, 1868


MARK TWAIN

I only heard him read once. It was in New York, last week. I had a seat about the middle of Steinway Hall, and that was rather further ..."

Well, that was far from a glowing review! I'm surprised. I wonder if it was an off day, or if CD really wasn't the reader history has made him out to be.

[Peter]

"This was Dickens - Dickens". That sums it up, I'd say.

" -- he strode. He strode --" at this point I would have been so happy I'm not sure the quality of his reading voice would have mattered much.

[Tristram]

Oh dear, I always thought that Dickens was a most captivating reader who would get his audiences into extasies, and that the power he put into his readings was one reason why his health was endangered at the end of his life. Let's not forget that Dickens was an aficionado of the theatre. So, all in all, I tend not to pay to much attention to Mr Twain's impression here: Either Dickens was a bit off colour that day, as Mary Lou suggests, and just not up to his usual form, or Mark Twain was simply a bit envious. Who knows?

After all, what he says of great celebrities being just ordinary human beings when you come to think of it, is also true of Mark Twain himself, and not only of Dickens.

[Judy]

Amazing to read Mark Twain's review, even if it isn't exactly glowing - I love the fact that he gives Dickens's pronunciation of Steerforth, "St'yaw-futh", which sounds rather posh to my modern ears! Many thanks for posting this, Kim.

[Kim]

From Vincent Van Gogh to his brother.

Theo van Gogh. Dordrecht, Sunday, 21 January 1877.


Dordrecht, 21 January 1877


My dear Theo,

You’ll have expected a letter sooner; things are going rather well in the shop, and it’s so busy that I go there at 8 o’clock in the morning and come back at 1 o’clock at night, but I’m happy about that.

I hope to go to Etten on 11 February. As you know, that’s when they’ll celebrate Pa’s birthday, would you be able to come as well? I hope to give Pa Eliot’s ‘Novellen’ (a translation of Scenes from clerical life), if we were to give something together we could give him Adam Bede as well.

Wrote last Sunday to Mr Jones and his wife that I’m not coming back, and without my being able to help it, the letter grew quite long – out of the abundance of the heart – did wish that they, for their part, would remember me, and asked them ‘to wrap my recollection in the cloak of Charity’.

The two prints of Christus Consolator that I got from you are hanging in my little room – saw the paintings in the museum, and also ‘Christ in Gethsemane’ by Scheffer, which is unforgettable, a long time ago that painting moved Pa just as much – then there’s a sketch of The sorrows of the earth and various drawings, and also the portrait of his studio and, as you know, the portrait of his Mother. There are other beautiful paintings as well, such as the Achenbach and Schelfhout and Koekkoek and, among others, a beautiful Allebé, an old man by the stove.

1v:2
Will we look at them together some day?

The first Sunday I was here I heard a sermon on ‘Behold, I make all things new’, and in the evening ‘Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things’.

This morning I went to hear the Rev. Beversen in a small old church, it was the Lord’s Supper and his text was ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink’.

**The window of my room looks out over gardens with pine trees and poplars etc. and the back of old houses, including a large one covered with ivy, ‘a strange old plant is the ivy green’, said Dickens. There can be something so serious and rather sombre in that view, and you should see it with the morning sun on it.

When I look at it I sometimes think of a letter of yours in which you speak of such an ivy-covered house, do you remember it?

1v:3
If you can afford it – if I can, I’ll do it too – subscribe to this year’s Katholieke Illustratie, which has Doré’s prints of London – the wharves on the Thames, Westminster, Whitechapel, the Underground railway &c. &c.

One of the people in the house I live in is a schoolmaster. Last Sunday, and today as well, we took a lovely walk along the canals and outside town as well, along the river Merwede, we also passed the place where you waited for the boat.

This evening when the sun went down and was reflected in the water and the windows, throwing a strong golden glow on everything, it was just like a painting by Cuyp. This evening I went to hear the Rev. Keller van Hoorn, who spoke on ‘I come to do Thy will, O Lord’. He just lost his daughter, and in all his words – I also heard him speak on ‘He that hath not loved knoweth not God; for God is love’– one can sense what he feels.

Write again soon when you have the time, I’ll have rather a lot of bookkeeping to do for the time being and will no doubt be busy. Give my regards to everyone at the Rooses’, and accept a handshake in thought from


Your loving brother

Vincent

**A reference to ‘A rare old plant is the Ivy green’ in Dickens’s poem ‘The ivy green’, in which the line occurs three times. See Charles Dickens, The posthumous papers of the Pickwick club. London 1837

[Kim]

From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Dordrecht, Wednesday, 28 February 1877

In De brieven 1990, the two sheets of poems were appended to this letter for the first time. It is most likely, however, that Van Gogh enclosed other sheets with this letter, namely a prayer comprising seven pages. Not only do other quotations and phrases occurring in this prayer recur in other letters from this period, but the tenor of this prayer is eminently suited to the issue at hand, namely Theo’s infatuation, which the two brothers had discussed on Sunday, 25 February. The plea for a suitable wife points to the heart of the matter, and the prayer includes both brothers – Vincent says he has enclosed something ‘for us’.

Powers Erickson 1992 dated this prayer – particularly on the basis of the biblical quotations – to the same period as letter : ‘most likely from the school in Isleworth’, meaning the second half of 1876. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that, if indeed this text stems from Van Gogh’s English period, he included no text in English (apart from one line taken from a work of Charles Dickens).

She views this text as ‘the strongest evidence to date of an evangelical religious conversion’ and ‘a personal testimony of faith’, and argues that Vincent ‘is urging Theo to make a kind of evangelical “decision” to follow Christ, just as he had done’. Powers Erickson printed an incomplete version of the text, in which several quotations as well as statements made by Van Gogh are missing.

That Vincent is seeking comfort in religion and using God’s words to appeal to Him are the defining elements of this prayer; at the same time, Vincent is attempting to give Theo the courage to decide what he really feels for this woman.

Dordrecht, 28 February 1877


My dear Theo,

Write again soon if you can find a moment, remain steadfast, be of good heart, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wrote something for us last night which I enclose herewith, read it sometime.

Last night I left the office at 1 o’clock and walked around the Grote Kerk again and then along the canals and past that old gate to the Nieuwe Kerk and then home. It had snowed and everything was so still, the only thing one saw was a little light here and there in one or two upstairs rooms and, in the snow, the black figure of the rattle-man. It was high tide, and the canals and boats looked dark against the snow. It can be so beautiful there by those churches. The sky was grey and foggy, and the moon shone faintly through it.

Thought of you while I was walking, and upon arriving home I wrote what I’m sending you. It’s perhaps a time when one needs ‘the sound of a psalm of the past and a lamentation from the Cross’.


Behold, I thought in the dead of night

To hear His voice, so tender, so soft...........

..........Give us the spirit of prayer and supplication to Thee. May experience of life make our eye single and fix it on Thee more and more, make us worshippers in spirit and in truth, make us the poor in Thy kingdom. Make that the love of Thee constraineth us to examine Thy words zealously and make godly sorrow worketh a choice for salvation not to be repented of. Thy word is a light unto our life’s path and a lamp unto our feet. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Thou art the bread of life which came down from Heaven, and whosoever desireth the living water of Thy word, it shall become in him as a source of living water. Whosoever eateth of that bread and drinketh of that water shall never hunger and never thirst for all eternity. Let us not depart from this life without having professed openly in one way or other our Love of Thee. O Lord, join us intimately to one another and let our Love for Thee make that bond ever stronger. Deliver us from evil, especially the evil of sin. Give us the holiness and the regeneration of which Thy scriptures speak, in Thee all things can become new at all times. We also think that we desire a good thing of Thee when we pray that Thou shouldest grant, IN THY TIME, that we be given a ring on our finger and that we may meet her on our way and that we may become men and fathers. Convey us to the opposite shore, O Lord, because we cannot rest until we rest in Thee. When we were children, we spoke as children, we understood as children, we thought as children, but now that we are become men, help us to put away childish things. **Yet Lord, keep our memory green, yea evergreen.

**The phrase ‘Lord keep my memory green’ occurs six times in Charles Dickens’s story The haunted man (1848), which appeared in the Christmas books; the last time as the closing line.

[Kim]

Vincent van Gogh

To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 18 August 1877.

Amsterdam, 18 Aug. 1877.

My dear Theo,

I feel the need to write to you again, it might be rather a long time before we see each other again, although I hope that in any case we’ll be together in Etten for Christmas. Aunt Mina’s birthday was last Sunday and, as I was there that evening, Uncle Stricker asked me a thing or two and didn’t seem dissatisfied. In everything I often think of the words in Acts, ‘we came’, we too must simply go on walking, try to get ahead, looking forward step by step to the goal and keeping it in sight, and when we have made an effort for a while in that way, ‘striving on’, as Uncle Jan says, then we notice through one thing or another that we’ve come a long way.

*Nowadays one sees here in all the book and print shops very good portraits of Uhland, Andersen, Dickens and many others, also of clergymen such as Ten Kate, it’s good to look at them often, to see whether one might find it or something of it. Did I write to you that I heard the Rev. Ten Kate in the little church on Bickerseiland last Sunday week? His voice and many curious expressions reminded me of Pa. The church was full to overflowing, and the square around the little church was full of carriages. It was a good and beautiful passage he talked about, namely, Rom. I:15-17, So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

It was a pleasant evening at Uncle Stricker’s on Aunt’s birthday, that morning Uncle had worked into his sermon the fable of La mort et le bucheron (the text was Proverbs XV:24, The way of life is above to the wise):

A poor woodcutter, faggots piled upon his back

And burdened by his load and sum of years,

Groaning and bent low, made way with heavy tread

And tried to reach his smoky cot.

At last, by effort and by pain o’ercome

He lays his burden down and dwells upon his sorry state.

What pleasure has he known in all his days?

Is there a poorer man in all this turning world?

Hungry sometimes, and never knowing rest;

His wife, his children, soldiery, taxation’s cut, Creditors and forced servitude Make of him misfortune’s very mould.

He calls on Death. Death promptly comes, Asks what’s to be done.

He says, to help me load this wood upon my back again

You will not tarry long.


Our passing comes, the cure for every ill,

But let’s not shift from where we stand.

Suffer sooner than die,

That’s man’s maxim.

I had quite a time on Thursday morning; Uncle had left town to go to Utrecht, and at 7 o’clock I had to be at the Strickers’, because Jan was leaving for Paris and I’d promised to accompany him to the station of the Hollandsche Spoor. So had got up early and seen the workers arriving at the dockyard with the sun shining wonderfully. ‘It is a good thing to praise the Lord God in the morning’, that’s what one thinks at such times. You would like the curious sight of that stream of black figures, large and small, first in the narrow street into which the sun shines only briefly and later at the yard. **Had breakfast afterwards, a piece of dry bread and a glass of beer – that is a remedy Dickens recommends to those on the verge of committing suicide as being very efficacious in ridding them of that intention, for a while at least. And even if one isn’t exactly in such a mood, it’s nevertheless good to do it now and then, and to think at the same time of, for example, Rembrandt’s painting of the supper at Emmaus.

Before going to the Strickers’ I walked through the Jewish quarter and on Buitenkant, Oude Teertuinen, Zeedijk, Warmoesstraat and past the Oudezijdskapel and the Oude and Zuiderkerk, through all kinds of old streets with smithies and cooperages and so on, and through narrow alleys such as Niezel, and canals with old narrow bridges such as the one we stood on that evening in Dordrecht. It was nice to see activity beginning at that early hour.

Wrote a text in which all the parables are listed in order and the miracles and so on, and am also doing the same in English and French, expecting Latin and Greek to be added later on, may it come to pass! During the day I’m busy studying for Mendes, and so work on it late in the evening or, for example, today until late at night and in the morning. Having been in England and France for so long, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t gradually master the languages more thoroughly and at least keep them up, it is written: polish it ceaselessly and polish it again, and also, Work, take pains, dig, delve, turn up the earth, leave not a spot where the hand pass not and pass again, and it is also written ‘so that it be fully leavened’.

*There were a number of portrait prints of Dickens in circulation, including the etching made by H.K. Browne for Court Magazine (1837); the stipple engraving by J.C. Armytage (1844), after M. Gillies of c. 1843; the lithograph by C. Baugniet (1858), and various other prints, some made after photographs.

**Although there is no explicit mention of suicide, dry bread or beer in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, ‘The story of the Baron of Grogzwig’ (chapter 6), Van Gogh is probably referring here to the following passage (headed ‘The genius of despair and suicide’): ‘And my advice to all men is, that if ever they become hipped and melancholy from similar causes (as very many men do), they look at both sides of the question, applying a magnifying glass to the best one; and if they still feel tempted to retire without leave, that they smoke a large pipe and drink a full bottle first, and profit by the laudable example of the Baron of Grogzwig.’ See The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "Vincent van Gogh

To Theo van Gogh. Amsterdam, Saturday, 18 August 1877.

Amsterdam, 18 Aug. 1877.

My dear Theo,

I feel the need to write to you again, it might be rather a long time before we se..."

Kim

What a nod from a great artist to a great author. I enjoy van Goth's art, but he has risen even further in my estimation after reading this letter.

If my memory serves, Kim, you have shared an earlier recollection of Van Gogh with us. As always, thank you for giving us other portals into Dickens.

[Kim]

The Atlantic

Four Months with Charles Dickens

by G. W. Putnam

| October 1870 Issue

In the year 1841 I was taking some lessons in painting of Francis Alexander, the well-known and highly esteemed Boston artist. Many of the most prominent men of the country, and a great many of the most beautiful women of Boston, had sat to Alexander. His portraits were unfailing in likeness, bold, strong, and masterly in execution, and characterized by that highest quality of portraiture, the expression of the soul of the sitter in the painted resemblance. His pictures are very numerous in Boston and vicinity, and in all that constitutes the highest type of portrait-painting they have seldom been equalled, and never surpassed, by those of any American artist.

Early in the winter of 1841 it had been announced that Charles Dickens would shortly visit this country, and Mr. Alexander wrote to him at London, inviting him to sit for his picture on his arrival. The next steamer brought a prompt answer from Mr. Dickens, accepting the invitation. I was quite glad of this arrangement, for having read all he had written, and sharing largely in the general enthusiasm for the author and his works, I looked forward with pleasure to the honor of an introduction, through my friend Alexander.

The steamer on board which Mr. Dickens and his wife had taken passage was telegraphed below on Saturday, January 22, 1842. On her arrival at the wharf Mr. Dickens rode at once to the Tremont House, where rooms had already been engaged for him. He had scarcely been housed before a crowd of admiring friends called to pay their respects ; and, as he says in his "Notes," before he and his wife had half finished their first dinner, they had received invitations to seats enough in the various churches, for the next day, to accommodate a score or two of grown-up families!

Mr. Dickens had left England an invalid, having suffered much from severe illness, and, after a rough voyage in midwinter, was in great need of rest. He fully appreciated the kindness and respect thus early shown him, and often referred to it with evident pleasure.

Sunday passed and Monday came, and a crowd of visitors thronged the house. Statesmen, authors, poets, scholars, merchants, judges, lawyers, editors, came, many of them accompanied by their wives and daughters, and his rooms were filled with smiling faces and resounded with cheerful voices. They found the great author just what they hoped and expected he would be from his writings, and no happier greetings were ever exchanged than those at the Tremont House on the arrival of Charles Dickens and his wife at Boston.

Meanwhile the press was active in describing his looks and manners, and all things connected with the arrival of the distinguished strangers. Go where you would in the city,—in the hotels, stores, counting-rooms, in the streets, in the cars, in the country as well as the city,—the all-absorbing topic was the "arrival of Dickens!" The New York and Philadelphia papers repeated all that was published by the Boston press, and delegations from societies, and committees of citizens from distant cities, came to see the great author and arrange for meetings and receptions in other places.

The young people were intensely interested in the matter. "Boz" was young, handsome, and possessed of wonderful genius, and everything relating to him and his family was of surpassing interest to them.

Mr. Dickens had appointed ten o'clock, on the Tuesday morning succeeding his arrival, for his first sitting to Alexander. The artist's rooms were at No. 41 Tremont Row, not far from the Tremont House. The newspapers had announced the fact, and, long before the appointed hour, a crowd of people were around the hotel and arranged along the sidewalk to see him pass. The doorway and stairs leading to the painter's studio were thronged with ladies and gentlemen, eagerly awaiting his appearance, and as he passed they were to the last degree silent and respectful. It was no vulgar curiosity to see a great and famous man, but an earnest, intelligent, and commendable desire to look upon the author whose writings—already enlisted in the great cause of humanity—had won their dear respect, and endeared him to their hearts. He pleasantly acknowledged the compliment their presence paid him, bowing slightly as he passed, his bright, dark eyes glancing through and through the crowd, searching every face, and reading character with wonderful quickness, while the arch smiles played over his handsome face.

On arriving at the anteroom Mr. Dickens found a large number of the personal friends of the artist awaiting the honor of an introduction, and he passed from group to group in a most kind and pleasant way. It was here that I received my own introduction, and I remember that after Mr. Dickens had passed around the room, he came again to me and exchanged some pleasant words about my name, slightly referring to the American hero of the Revolution who had borne it.

The crowd waited till the sitting was over, and saw him back again to the Tremont; and this was repeated every morning while he was sitting for his picture.

The engravings in his books which had then been issued either in England or America were very little like him. Alexander chose an attitude highly original, but very characteristic. Dickens is represented at his table writing. His left hand rests upon the paper. The pen in his right hand seems to have been stopped for a moment, while he looks up at you as if you had just addressed him. His long brown hair, slightly curling, sweeps his shoulder, the bright eyes glance, and that inexpressible look of kindly mirth plays round his mouth and shows itself in the arched brow. Alexander caught much of that singular lighting up of the face which Dickens had, beyond any one I ever saw, and the picture is very like the original, and will convey to those who wish to know how "Boz" looked at thirty years of age an excellent idea of the man.

I saw the picture daily as it progressed, and, being in the artist's room on the Thursday following the first sitting, Mr. Alexander told me that he had "just made a disposal of my services." I did not know what he meant. He then told me that Mr. Dickens and his wife had been at his house that forenoon, and Mr. Dickens said: "Mr. Alexander, I have been in the country but a few days, and my table is already heaped high with unanswered letters! I have a great number of engagements already. I did not expect a correspondence like this, and I must have a secretary. Can you find me one?" And Mr. Alexander at once mentioned me. I felt very diffident in regard to it, for I did not feel qualified for such a posïtion with such a man, however great the pleasure I knew I should derive from it. But my friend would take no excuses, insisted that I was just the man for the place; and while we were talking a note came from Mr. Dickens, requesting that he would bring me to the Tremont House. So I went with Mr. Alexander, and was received with great cordiality and kindness by Mr. Dickens and his wife, and made an appointment to commence my duties on the following morning.

On Friday morning I was there at nine o'clock, the time appointed. Mr. and Mrs. Dickens had their meals in their own rooms, and the table was spread for breakfast. Soon they came in, and, after a cheerful greeting, I took my place at a side-table and wrote as he ate his breakfast, and meanwhile conversed with Mrs. Dickens, opened his letters, and dictated the answers to me.

In one corner of the room, Dexter the sculptor was earnestly at work modelling a bust of Mr. Dickens. Several others of the most eminent artists of our country had urgently requested Mr. Dickens to sit to them for his picture and bust, but, having consented to do so to Alexander and Dexter, he was obliged to refuse all others for want of time.

While Mr. Dickens ate his breakfast, read his letters and dictated the answers, Dexter was watching with the utmost earnestness the play of every feature, and comparing his model with the original. Often during the meal he would come to Dickens with a solemn, business-like air, stoop down and look at him sideways, pass round and take a look at the other side of his face, and then go back to his model and work away for a few minutes; then come again and take another look and go back to his model; soon he would come again with his callipers and measure Dickens's nose, and go and try it on the nose of the model; then come again with the callipers and try the width of the temples, or the distance from the nose to the chin, and back again to his work, eagerly shaping and correcting his model. The whole soul of the artist was engaged in his task, and the result was a splendid bust of the great author. Mr. Dickens was highly pleased with it, and repeatedly alluded to it, during his stay, as a very successful work of art.

Alexander's picture and Dexter's bust of Dickens should be exhibited at this time, that those who never saw him in his young days may know exactly how he looked. The bust by Dexter has the rare merit of action, and in every respect faithfully represents the features, attitude, and look of Charles Dickens.

It would be very natural in this connection for the young ladies and gentlemen of this generation to expect some description of the wife of Charles Dickens.

Mrs. Dickens was a lady of moderate height; with a full, well-developed form, a beautiful face and good figure. I call to mind the high, full forehead, the brown hair gracefully arranged, the look of English healthfulness in the warm glow of color in her cheeks, the blue eyes with a tinge of violet, well-arched brows, a well-shaped nose, and a mouth small and of uncommon beauty. She was decidedly a handsome woman, and would have attracted notice as such in any gathering of ladies anywhere. She had a quiet dignity mingled with great sweetness of manner; her calm quietness differing much from the quick, earnest, always cheerful, but keen and nervous temperament of her husband,—a temperament belonging to the existence, and absolutely necessary to the development, of a great genius like that of Charles Dickens.

Mrs. Dickens was accompanied by her favorite waiting-maid, Ann—a warm-hearted English girl,—I believe London born and bred,—and devotedly attached to the family. Ann had many cockney notions, and it was pleasant to hear her comical expressions of surprise at our American words and ways. She had got a very strong impression of the wildness of our country, especially the West, which Mr. Dickens intended to visit, and anticipated no small danger from the Indians.

Mrs. Dickens felt all a mother's anxiety for the little ones left at home, and seemed impatient to return to them. They brought from England a large pencil-drawing of their four children, "Charles, Walter, Kate, and Mary," made by their friend Maclise, the eminent English artist. The picture was framed, and wherever we afterwards went it was at once taken from its case and placed on the mantel-piece or table. Mr. and Mrs. Dickens talked constantly of their children, and seemed to derive great comfort from the pictured presence of their little ones. The picture possessed also great attraction for the thousands who called, and who were much interested, of course, in the children of their distinguished visitors.

The people flocked to the Tremont day by day; the most eminent men of the time were constant in their attentions. I remember that among them came often Mayor Chapman, Charles Sumner, and Professor Felton of Cambridge. Invitations to private parties—most of which Mr. Dickens was obliged to decline for want of time—came daily.

[Kim]

These requests were, I believe, always granted. One or two of them were from young ladies, who asked in addition to an autograph a lock of his hair! The autographs were given; but the last request was in a few pleasant words refused.

A few days after the arrival of Mr. Dickens at Boston, the presentation by Mr. Dickens of a testimonial to Captain Hewitt, the gallant commander of the steamship in which he came, took place in Tremont Temple. The hall was filled to overflowing, and hundreds of people were unable to obtain admission. The whole affair passed off most happily.

A grand dinner to Mr. Dickens was given by the leading citizens of Boston, a full account of which may be found in the papers of that day. I remember that one of the most felicitous speeches on that occasion was made by the elder Quincy.

With a very high opinion of Boston and its people, and a heart full of gratitude for the kind attentions shown him, Mr. Dickens left the city on Saturday, February 5th, to spend the Sabbath with Governor Davis at Worcester, and to go from thence to Hartford. At Springfield a committee of gentlemen from Hartford met him; and there being in those days no railroads from Springfield to Hartford, the journey was made in a nice little steamboat, propelled, Mr. Dickens thought, by an engine of about "half-pony-power." The voyage was very pleasant indeed.

At Hartford a complimentary dinner was given him, at which very interesting speeches were made, his own being exceedingly happy; and here, in speaking of the subject of an international copyright law, he made a most eloquent and touching allusion to the death of Sir Walter Scott.

From Hartford Mr. Dickens went to New Haven. Arriving there in the evening, the news spread rapidly that "Dickens had come," and at once the throng of visitors poured in. Before he had been there an hour the hotel was crowded and the street outside filled with people. Citizens of the highest distinction hastened, with their families, to pay their respects, for it was understood that his stay in the city would be very short. The Yale students were there in force, and such was the desire to see him that he was urgently requested to receive the throng assembled, and for hours the people filled the reception-room and held the halls and passages of the hotel. As the crowd increased, the landlord found it necessary to post two stout porters on the main staircase, who locked their hands across the stairs and kept the throng somewhat at bay. As fast as those in the reception-room had their introduction and retired by another way, the two porters on the stairs would raise their arms and suffer another installment of the crowd to pass; and thus till near eleven o'clock at night the admirers of "Boz" pressed around him for a look and an introduction, and all this was evidently from a love and appreciation of the man. It was nearly midnight before Mr. Dickens could retire to his room.

The next day, in company with Professor Felton of Cambridge, Mr. and Mrs. Dickens took the steamer for New York. On arriving in the evening they went at once to the Carleton House on Broadway, where rooms had been already engaged for them.

The next morning the city papers were full of the "arrival of Dickens"; and there was a repetition substantially of the scenes at Boston and New Haven. Then commenced his visits to the public institutions for Mr. Dickens came, not expecting to be received with such boundless enthusiasm as a guest, but to see our people, and learn all he could during his stay of America and her free institutions, and his great popularity among the people was as surprising to him as it was unexpected.

He was constantly invited to visit the schools, the benevolent asylums, and the prisons in and around the metropolis; and he and Mrs. Dickens often had three or four engagements of an evening to social gatherings at the homes of the elite of the city.

Professor Felton was often with him, and some quiet evening walks about the metropolis were taken by the two, in which they doubtless visited some of the fashionable restaurants of the city;—speaking of the oyster-suppers, in his "Notes," Mr. Dickens alludes to his friend as the "heartiest of Greek professors!"

Washington Irving came very often, and the meeting of these kindred spirits was such as might have been expected. They were greatly delighted with each other, and at all hours Irving and Felton were admitted. A great ball was given in honor of Mr. Dickens and lady, a full account of which was given in the papers of that day.

[Kim]

Besides Irving and Felton came Bryant, Willis, Halleck, Clark of the "Knickerbocker," and many others of the stars in the literary firmament; and on one occasion Mr. Dickens had to breakfast Irving, Bryant, and Halleck. The clerk of the Carleton was himself a great lover of literature, and remarked to me: "Good Heaven! To think what the four walls of that room now contain! Washington Irving, William C. Bryant, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and Charles Dickens!"

But in New York came many others determined to see the great author, and if possible make him useful for their private purposes,—people who had literary and other "axes" to grind; but they were generally foiled in their plans.

I recollect an Irish book-peddler who was most impudent and persevering. He wanted Mr. Dickens to give him money to set up a bookstore; and I had no small trouble to keep him from intruding into the very presence of Mr. Dickens. He claimed that Dickens owed much of his American popularity to him, because he had peddled large quantities of the American editions of his works! He did not, however, get the money he wanted, and wrote Mr. Dickens a letter, full of threats and indignation.

The correspondence poured in as at Boston; and while most of it was what it should have been, some of it was very ridiculous and amusing.

Voluminous manuscripts came, whose modest authors requested Mr. Dickens to read them carefully, and note any alterations or corrections he thought proper, and requesting that he superintend their publication in England, and receive a percentage on the sales!

One letter came from the South, asking an original epitaph for the tombstone of an infant. Another came from a Southern lady, soliciting an autograph copy of the lines by Mrs. Leo Hunter to an "expiring frog."

One lady from New Jersey wrote that many funny things had taken place in her family, and many interesting and tragic events also, and that she had all the records for a hundred years past or more. She proposed to furnish this record, with explanations, to Mr. Dickens, that he should arrange and rewrite them and have them published in England, and divide equally with her the profits.

One man, a most disagreeable person, came often. He brought for Mr. Dickens the Lord's Prayer written in twenty-four languages! "Ah," said Mr. Dickens, "twenty-four languages! One would be sufficient, if men would only live that prayer!"

One day I was called out to meet an elderly woman, dressed in rusty black and wearing a huge black bonnet. She had passed the "outer guard" of clerk and porters below, and had reached the door to Mr. Dickens's parlor.

He had been out all the morning, and, being excessively tired, had thrown himself down on the sofa for a little rest. The old lady had a volume under her arm, and said she had come upon business of great importance, and "must see Mr. Dickens!" I explained to her that it was impossible, but that I would carry any message to him she wished; but all would not do, she "must see Mr. Dickens!" At last I convinced her that it could not be done, and so she unburdened her mind to me. She said she had "been a Mormon," but had left them because of their wicked ways, and the book was an exposé of Mormonism, and she couldn't leave it, because it was borrowed; but she knew that a great many English people were constantly coming over here to "jine the Mormons," and she wanted Mr. Dickens to go home and lecture on the subject, and if possible baffle the efforts of the Mormon leaders. I promised her that I would lay the whole subject before Mr. Dickens without delay, and he would take such action as he saw proper; and so the old lady left. Mr. Dickens heard most of the conversation, and was much amused at it.

It was in New York that it was first suspected that Charles Dickens would not be likely to approve American slavery; he had also at the Hartford dinner broached the very unpopular subject of an "international copyright law"; and the newspapers began extensively to exhibit that unfriendly feeling toward him which afterward became so violent and even malignant.

After a stay of some weeks at New York, Mr. Dickens and party left for Philadelphia, and took up their quarters at the United States Hotel in that city. Here, as in Boston and New York, the best and purest of the people came to pay their respects, and many pleasant friendships were formed. Mr. Dickens visited most of the public institutions, quite an elaborate account of which is given in his "Notes."

A day or two after his arrival in Philadelphia an individual somewhat prominent in city politics came with others and obtained an introduction. On taking his leave, he asked Mr. Dickens if he would grant him the favor to receive a few personal friends the next day; and Mr. Dickens assented. The next morning it was announced through the papers that Mr. Dickens would "receive the public" at a certain hour! At the time specified the street in front was crowded with people, and the offices and halls of the hotel filled. Mr. Dickens asked the cause of the assembling, and was astonished and indignant when he learned that all this came of his permission to the individual above mentioned to "bring a few personal friends for an introduction," and he positively refused to hold a "levee." But the landlord of the house and others came and represented to him that his refusal would doubtless create a riot, and that great injury would be done to the house by the enraged populace; and so at last Mr. Dickens consented, and, taking his place in one of the large parlors up stairs, prepared himself for the ordeal. Up the people came, and soon the humorous smiles played over his face, for, tedious and annoying as it was, the thing had its comic side, and, while he shook hands incessantly, he as usual studied human character. For two mortal hours or more the crowd poured in, and he shook hands and exchanged words with all, while the dapper little author of the scene stood smiling by, giving hundreds and thousands of introductions, and making, no doubt, much social and political capital out of his supposed intimacy with the great English author. This scene is substantially repeated in "Martin Chuzzlewit," when his new-made American friends insisted upon Martin's "holding a levee," having announced without his authority, as in the case of Mr. Dickens, that he would "receive the public":—

"Up they came with a rush, up they came till the room was full, and through the open door a dismal perspective of more to come was shown upon the stairs. One after another, dozen after dozen, score after score, more, more, more, up they came, all shaking hands with Martin. Such varieties of hands, the thick, the thin, the short, the long, the fat, the lean, the coarse, the fine, such differences of temperature, the hot, the cold, the dry, the moist, the flabby, such diversities of grasp, the tight, the loose, the short-lived, and the lingering. Still up, up, up, more, more, more, and ever and anon the Captain's voice was heard above the crowd: 'There's more below, there's more below. Now, gentlemen, you that have been introduced to Mr. Chuzzlewit, will you clear? gentlemen, will you clear? Will you be so good as clear, gentlemen, and make a little room for more?'"

At last, in Mr. Dickens's case, the "levee" was over, and, tired to the last degree, he went to his room.

[Kim]

From his daughter Mary (Mamie):

"As I have said, he was usually alone when at work, though there were, of course, some occasional exceptions, and I myself constituted such an exception.... I had a long and serious illness, with an almost equally long convalescence. During the latter, my father suggested that I should be carried every day into his study to remain with him, and, although I was fearful of disturbing him, he assured me that he desired to have me with him. On one of these mornings, I was lying on the sofa endeavoring to keep perfectly quiet, while my father wrote busily and rapidly at his desk, when he suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote furiously for a few moments, and then went again to the mirror. The facial pantomime was resumed, and then turning toward, but evidently not seeing, me, he began talking rapidly in a low voice. Ceasing this soon, however, he returned once more to his desk, where he remained silently writing until luncheon time. It was a most curious experience for me, and one of which, I did not until later years, fully appreciate the purport. Then I knew that with his natural intensity he had thrown himself completely into the character that he was creating, and that for the time being he had not only lost sight of his surroundings, but had actually became in action, as in imagination, the creature of his pen."

[Kim]

From his daughter Mamie:

"I remember that my sister and I occupied a little garret room in Devonshire Terrace, at the very top of the house. He had taken the greatest pains and care to make the room as pretty and comfortable for his two little daughters as it could be made. He was often dragged up the steep staircase to this room to see some new print or some new ornament which we children had put up, and he always gave us words of praise and approval. He encouraged us in every possible way to make ourselves useful, and to adorn and beautify our rooms with our own hands, and to be ever tidy and neat. I remember that the adornment of this garret was decidedly primitive, the unframed prints being fastened to the wall by ordinary black or white pins, whichever we could get. But, never mind, if they were put up neatly and tidily they were always excellent, or quite slap-up as he used to say. Even in those early days, he made a point of visiting every room in the house once each morning, and if a chair was out of its place, or a blind not quite straight, or a crumb left on the floor, woe betide the offender."

[Kim]

From Mamie Dickens book "My Father As I Recall Him"

"My love for my father has never been touched or approached by any other love. I hold him in my heart of hearts as a man apart from all other men, as one apart from all other beings.

Of my father’s childhood it is but natural that I should know very little more than the knowledge possessed by the great public. But I never remember hearing him allude at any time, or under any circumstances, to those unhappy days in his life except in the one instance of his childish love and admiration for “Gad’s Hill,” which was destined to become so closely associated with his name and works.

He had a very strong and faithful attachment for places:

Chatham, I think, being his first love in this respect. For it was here, when a child, and a very sickly child, poor little fellow, that he found in an old spare room a store of books, among which were “Roderick Random,” “Peregrine Pickle,” “Humphrey Clinker,” “Tom Jones,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” “Don Quixote,” “Gil Blas,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “The Arabian Nights,” and other volumes. “They were,” as Mr. Forster wrote, “a host of friends when he had no single friend.” And it was while living at Chatham that he first saw “Gad’s Hill.”

As a “very queer small boy” he used to walk up to the house—it stood on the summit of a high hill—on holidays, or when his heart ached for a “great treat.” He would stand and look at it, for as a little fellow he had a wonderful liking and admiration for the house, and it was, to him, like no other house he had ever seen. He would walk up and down before it with his father, gazing at it with delight, and the latter would tell him that perhaps if he worked hard, was industrious, and grew up to be a good man, he might some day come to live in that very house. His love for this place went through his whole life, and was with him until his death. He takes “Mr. Pickwick” and his friends from Rochester to Cobham by the beautiful back road, and I remember one day when we were driving that way he showed me the exact spot where “Mr. Pickwick” called out: “Whoa, I have dropped my whip!” After his marriage he took his wife for the honeymoon to a village called Chalk, between Gravesend and Rochester."

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "From Mamie Dickens book "My Father As I Recall Him"

"My love for my father has never been touched or approached by any other love. I hold him in my heart of hearts as a man apart from all other m..."

Kim

Thank you for all the highlights that help enormously in drawing a complete picture of Dickens.

As my wife and I have been travelling I am falling behind in my enjoyment and participation of our discussions.

By the way, you would enjoy the wonderful sense of history and the kindness of the people of Portugal. The heat, however, is another matter. It’s been in the high 20’s (90 ish)

[Tristram]

Peter wrote: "The heat, however, is another matter. It’s been in the high 20’s (90 ish) "

How I'd love to be there right now! Whatever that may be in Celsius, hot sounds marvellous to me in autumn-ridden Germany.

[Mary Lou]

Kim wrote: "From his daughter Mary (Mamie):

"As I have said, he was usually alone when at work, though there were, of course, some occasional exceptions, and I myself constituted such an exception.... I had ..."

I have read this excerpt before, and always wonder what scene he was writing at the time. Although, I suppose it's of little consequence - he probably did this routinely.

[Kim]

From Mamie Dickens book "My Father As I Recall Him"

It was while on his way home after this trip that he was in the terrible railroad accident to which he afterwards referred in a letter to a friend, saying, that his heart had never been in good condition after that accident. It occurred on the ninth of June, a date which five years later was the day of his death.

He wrote describing his experiences: “I was in the only carriage which did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and became suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. This is exactly what passed—you may judge from it the length of our suspense: Suddenly we were off the rail and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out ‘My God!’ and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite, and the young one on my left) and said: ‘We can’t help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray, don’t cry out!’ The old lady immediately answered: ‘Thank you, rely upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet.’ We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, which then stopped. I said to them thereupon: ‘You may be sure nothing worse can happen; our danger must be over. Will you remain here without stirring while I get out of the window?’ They both answered quite collectedly ‘Yes,’ and I got out without the least notion of what had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution, and stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in the other two compartments were madly trying to plunge out at a window, and had no idea that there was an open, swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else. The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down-track of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them: ‘Look at me! Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don’t know me?’ One of them answered: ‘We know you very well, Mr. Dickens.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘my good fellow, for God’s sake, give me your key, and send one of those laborers here, and I’ll empty this carriage.’ We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. Suddenly I came upon a staggering man, covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn’t bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face, and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass.

He said ‘I am gone,’ and died afterwards. Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead color) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy, and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed her she was dead. Then a man examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed) came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterward found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water. I am keeping very quiet here.”

This letter was written from “Gad’s Hill” four days after the accident. We were spared any anxiety about our father, as we did not hear of the accident until after we were with him in London. With his usual care and thoughtfulness he had telegraphed to his friend Mr. Wills, to summon us to town to meet him. The letter continues: “I have, I don’t know what to call it, constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not the least fluttered at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection I feel the shake, and am obliged to stop.”

We heard, afterwards, how helpful he had been at the time, ministering to the dying! How calmly and tenderly he cared for the suffering ones about him!

But he never recovered entirely from the shock. More than a year later he writes: “It is remarkable that my watch (a special chronometer) has never gone quite correctly since, and to this day there sometimes comes over me, on a railway and in a hansom-cab, or any sort of conveyance, for a few seconds, a vague sense of dread that I have no power to check. It comes and passes, but I cannot prevent its coming.”

I have often seen this dread come upon him, and on one occasion, which I especially recall, while we were on our way from London to our little country station “Higham,” where the carriage was to meet us, my father suddenly clutched the arms of the railway carriage seat, while his face grew ashy pale, and great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead, and though he tried hard to master the dread, it was so strong that he had to leave the train at the next station. The accident had left its impression upon the memory, and it was destined never to be effaced. The hours spent upon railroads were thereafter often hours of pain to him. I realized this often while travelling with him, and no amount of assurance could dispel the feeling.

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "From Mamie Dickens book "My Father As I Recall Him"

It was while on his way home after this trip that he was in the terrible railroad accident to which he afterwards referred in a letter to a frie..."

Such a trauma. The kind actions of Dickens towards his fellow passengers and then his rescue of the MS of OMF give us another insight into his character.

I was most interested to read how Dickens suffered from this trauma for the rest of his life. I am not a doctor, but would we call his emotional response to the ordeal PTSD today?

[Kim]

It was sad to read how it affected him for the rest of his short life. I wonder if could be one of the reasons his life was so short. And yes, it sounds like PTSD to me.

[Kim]

From "My Father as I Recall Him" by Mamie Dickens;

He loved animals, flowers and birds, his fondness for the latter being shown nowhere more strongly than in his devotion to his ravens at Devonshire Terrace. He writes characteristically of the death of “Grip,” the first raven: “You will be greatly shocked and grieved to hear that the raven is no more. He expired to-day at a few minutes after twelve o’clock, at noon. He had been ailing for a few days, but we anticipated no serious result, conjecturing that a portion of the white paint he swallowed last summer might be lingering about his vitals. Yesterday afternoon he was taken so much worse that I sent an express for the medical gentleman, who promptly attended and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. Under the influence of this medicine he recovered so far as to be able, at eight o’clock, p.m., to bite Topping (the coachman). His night was peaceful. This morning, at daybreak, he appeared better, and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. Toward eleven o’clock he was so much worse that it was found necessary to muffle the stable knocker. At half-past, or thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the horse and Topping’s family, and to add some incoherent expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding of his approaching dissolution or some wishes relative to the disposal of his little property, consisting chiefly of half-pence which he had buried in different parts of the garden. On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach house, stopped to bark, staggered, and exclaimed ‘Halloa, old girl!’ (his favorite expression) and died. He behaved throughout with decent fortitude, equanimity and self-possession. I deeply regret that, being in ignorance of his danger, I did not attend to receive his last instructions.

Something remarkable about his eyes occasioned Topping to run for the doctor at twelve. When they returned together, our friend was gone. It was the medical gentleman who informed me of his decease. He did it with caution and delicacy, preparing me by the remark that ‘a jolly queer start had taken place.’ I am not wholly free from suspicions of poison. A malicious butcher has been heard to say that he would ‘do’ for him. His plea was that he would not be molested in taking orders down the mews by any bird that wore a tail. Were they ravens who took manna to somebody in the wilderness? At times I hope they were, and at others I fear they were not, or they would certainly have stolen it by the way. Kate is as well as can be expected. The children seem rather glad of it. He bit their ankles, but that was in play.” As my father was writing “Barnaby Rudge” at this time, and wished to continue his study of raven nature, another and a larger “Grip” took the place of “our friend” but it was he whose talking tricks and comical ways gave my father the idea of making a raven one of the characters in this book. My father’s fondness for “Grip” was, however, never transferred to any other raven, and none of us ever forgave the butcher whom we all held in some way responsible for his untimely taking off.

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "From "My Father as I Recall Him" by Mamie Dickens;

He loved animals, flowers and birds, his fondness for the latter being shown nowhere more strongly than in his devotion to his ravens at Devonshi..."

Kim

Grip seemed like part of the family, or would that be part of the menagerie of the Dickens household.

Lucky Raven to live such a good life. Perhaps Grip is, at least partially, responsible for Dickens’s fascination with birds.

[Mary Lou]

I came across this website and thought this would be the place to share it. I don't think Kim has given us this link before, but she's so thorough -- I could be wrong! Anyhow, it's all about what Dickens looked like, and compares portraits and descriptions of him at different stages of life.

http://photohistory-sussex.co.uk/Dick...

[Peter]

Mary Lou wrote: "I came across this website and thought this would be the place to share it. I don't think Kim has given us this link before, but she's so thorough -- I could be wrong! Anyhow, it's all about what D..."

Mary Lou

Thank you for sharing this site with us. It was a remarkable survey of Dickens as he moved through history. With the advent of photography it makes the compilation even more insightful.

[Kim]

Mary Lou wrote: "I came across this website and thought this would be the place to share it. I don't think Kim has given us this link before, but she's so thorough -- I could be wrong! Anyhow, it's all about what D..."

I get things from there sometimes, at least I think I do, I haven't been there for awhile.

[Kim]

To Parents, Guardians, and all Persons Intrusted with the Care of Children

George Cruikshank

The following epilogue to George Cruikshank's Fairy Library (1865) is largely based on his polemical "letter" (published as a pamphlet in 1854) from the character Hop-o' My-Thumb to Charles Dickens), long out of print by 1865.

At the end of the part of the "Fairy Library" containing "Cinderella," in answering a criticism upon my "Jack and the Bean-Stalk, allusion is made to Mr. Charles Dickens's paper, entitled "Frauds on the Fairies," which attack upon my edition of "Fairy Tales" was answered, as I dare state, by Master Hop-o'-my-Thumb, and which answer was published at Eighty-six Fleet Street, and might be had for One Penny. This letter of "Hop-o'-my-Thumb's" is out of print, and I therefore take this opportunity of giving the substance of the said letter, as an answer and as a defence for rewriting these four "Fairy Tales" to suit my own taste in these matters, and taking at the same time the opportunity of introducing my own views and convictions upon what I consider important social and educational questions; and for so doing Mr. Charles Dickens thought proper to publish in Household Words a paper entitled "Frauds on the Fairies," of which the following is an extract: —

We may assume that we are not singular in entertaining a very great tenderness for the fairy literature of our childhood. What enchanted us, then, and is captivating a million of young fancies now, has, at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day's work, and laid their grey heads down to rest. It would be hard to estimate the amount of gentleness and mercy that has made its way among us through these slight channels. FORBEARANCE, COURTESY, CONSIDERATION FOR THE POOR AND AGED, KIND TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, THE LOVE OF NATURE, ABHORRENCE OF TYRANNY AND BRUTE FORCE — many such good things have been first nourished in the child's heart by this powerful aid. It has greatly helped to keep us, in some sense, ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender track not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children, sharing their delights.

In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected. Our English red-tape is too magnificently red ever to be employed in the tying up of such trifles, but every one who has considered the subject, knows full well that a nation without fancy, without some romance, never did, never can, never will, hold a great place under the sun. The theatre, having done its worst to destroy these admirable fictions — and having in a most exemplary manner destroyed itself, its artists, and its audiences, in that perversion of its duty; it becomes doubly important that the little books themselves, nurseries of fancy as they are, should be preserved. To preserve them in their usefulness, they must be as much preserved in their simplicity, and purity, and innocent extravagance, as if they were actual fact. Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him.

We have lately observed with pain the intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower-garden. The rooting of the animal among the roses would in itself have awakened in us nothing but indignation!"

But his pain arises, as he says, from this "Whole Hog" being driven in by one, whom he charges with altering the text of a Fairy Story for the purpose of propagating doctrines of my own, and protests against my right to do so; and after stating that the theatres have done their worst to destroy these fictions (an opinion which I have the temerity to say is altogether erroneous) he goes on to say that —

It becomes doubly important that the little books themselves, nurseries of fancy as they are, should be preserved. To preserve them in their usefulness, they must be as much preserved in their SIMPLICITY and PURITY and INNOCENT extravagance, as if they were actual fact."

In reply to all this, I have to state, in the first place, that when I began the illustrations for this "Fairy Library," I commenced with "Hop-o'-my-Thumb," and had not any intention to make any alterations in that story; but upon frequently referring to the text, as I always do when employed this way, so as thoroughly to understand the work, and for the purpose of selecting the best subjects for illustration, I discovered that there were some parts of this Fairy literature that required, as I thought, a little pruning; but I found so much difficulty in cutting out the objectionable parts, so as to leave it readable, that I decided upon re-writing the whole, and in doing this I certainly did introduce some of my " doctrines," and on this point he declares that whoever alters these Fairy Tales to suit his own opinions is guilty of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him. This is the opinion of Mr. Charles Dickens; but in my humble opinion, if Shakespeare thought proper to alter Italian tales, and even history, to suit his purpose, and if Sir Walter Scott used history also in the same way for his purpose, surely any one may take the liberty of altering a common Fairy Tale to suit his purpose, and convey his opinions; and most assuredly so, if that purpose be a good one.

And now, let us look at the "USEFULNESS", "SIMPLICITY", "PURITY,"and "INNOCENCE " of Mr. Dickens's favourite Fairy Tales, which he declares ought to be preserved in their integrity, he having "a very great tenderness for the Fairy literature of our childhood." For this end I call attention to the story of "Jack the Giant-Killer," which is really little more than a succession of slaughterings and bloodshed. This sort of example cannot, surely, be very useful to the children of a civilized and Christian people. Then that pretty little episode of Jack dropping his dinner into a bag, suspended under his chin, and pretending to cut his stomach open, and daring and inducing the stupid Giant to do the same feat, which he does on his real stomach, and the shocking and disgusting result thereof, is surely neither useful nor innocent; and as to the purity of this tale, why, there are in some of the old editions (such as Mr. Dickens wishes to be kept entire) some parts so gross that no decent person would reprint them for publication in the present day. And in the old editions of "Hop-o'-my-Thumb and the Seven-League Boots," two copies of which I have, both differing most materially from each other, in one of which the very title is altered to Minet or Little Thumb, the father of Hop-o'-my Thumb (who it must be remembered is a Count) in consequence of a scarcity of food, proposes, and induces the mother, the Countess, to take the children, seven in number, out into the forest, and leave them there to perish miserably of hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.

Now, allow me to ask where is the amount of tenderness and mercy to be found in such an unnatural and horrible act as is here narrated ? And feeling that such a statement was not only disgusting, but against nature, and consequently unfit for the pure and parent-loving minds of children, I felt certain that any father acting in such a manner must either be mad, or under the influence of intoxicating liquor, which is much the same thing ; and therefore, wishing to avoid any allusion to such an awful affliction as that of insanity, I accounted for the father's unnatural conduct by attributing it to that cause which marks its progress daily and hourly by acts of uimatural brutality.

In these old editions, which Mr. Dickens wishes so much to be preserved in their usefulness, the Ogre has a family of seven children; and these pretty little darlings are thus described: —

They were yet young, and were of a fair and pleasing complexion, though they devoured human flesh like their father ; but they had little round grey eyes, flat noses, and long sharp teeth set wide from each other. They promised already what they would some day grow to be; for at this early age they would bite little children on purpose to suck their blood.

The story goes on to say that Hop and his brothers were put into one bed, and that the giant's children were sleeping in another, in the same room, with "tiger-skin" caps or "crowns" on their heads, and that Hop got out of bed whilst all were asleep, and exchanged the giant's children's seven crowns for the seven nightcaps; that the Ogre awoke in the night, and regretting that he had not slaughtered Hop and his brothers, sprang out of bed, and taking his great sabre, crept softly into the chamber where the children lay, and approaching the bed on which were those of the Count, he felt at their heads, one by one, of which they were not sensible, except Hop-o'-my-Thumb, who lay awake and trembling for fear of discovery. The Giant, feeling the well-known crowns on the heads of Hop and his brothers, said, "Truly, I must have drunk too much last night, thus to mistake one bed for the other." He then went immediately to the bed where his own children were asleep, and feeling on their heads the caps of the Count's children, he cut their throats in a moment, and without remorse.

Now, I would ask if this peculiarity of the young Ogres — "biting little children on purpose to suck their blood" — is any part of those "many such good things" as "have been first nourished in a child's heart?" And I should also like to know what there is so enchanting and captivating to "young fancies" in this description of a father (ogre though he be) cutting the throats of his own seven children? Is this the sort of stuff that helps to "keep us ever young?" or give us that innocent delight which we may share with children? It then goes on to say that Hop —

Having thus kindly provided for the immediate safety of his brothers, he approached the giant with great caution, and pulling off his wonderful boots, which he put on without delay, Hop-o'-my-Thumb then set out with all the speed his boots could give, for the Giant's house, where he found the good mother weeping for her slaughtered children. 'Your husband,' said he, addressing her, 'is in great peril; he has been taken while asleep, by a band of robbers who have vowed to kill him, unless he gives them all his grold and silver. In this moment of distress, with the weapons of the robbers at his throat, perceiving me, he prayed me to acquaint you with his danger, and to desire that you would send him all his money and valuables without reserve, or his life would become the forfeit. As the case does not admit of delay, he has given me his seven-league boots, that I might not be long on the way, and that you may be convinced I do not wish to deceive you. The good woman, who knew it was her duty to preserve her husband, notwithstanding his faults, gave Hop-o'-my-Thumb all the wealth in the house, which loaded him heavily; yet he departed highly pleased with the burden.

[Kim]

A nice young gentleman, certainly. Hop finds the "good mother weeping for her slaughtered children" — (slaughtered by their own father!) — but quite unmoved by this maternal grief, he is made to tell her a most abominable falsehood, and with the low, artful cunning of a young " thief," he points to the boots as evidence that he did not wish to deceive her, thus making out poor little "Hop-o'-my-Thumb " to be an unfeeling, artful liar, and a thief. Surely there is not much "purity" in lying and thieving, and such a display of artful falsehood and successful robbery cannot be very advantageous lessons for the juvenile mind! And further, in Mr. Dickens's favourite edition, the child is not only made a thief, but they make his noble parents receivers of stolen goods. The family — father, mother, and brothers — are described as being in great grief at the non-arrival of Master Hop ; but the authors say, "It is not easy to imagine the great joy that filled every heart when Hop-o'-my-Thumb entered their apartment, and poured out before their astonished eyes the treasures with which he was loaded."

The Count immediately re-purchased the lands and castles that he had before sold; and instructed by his late sufferings, spent afterwards his time and his wealth in improving the minds of his children (whom he had taken into the forest to starve or to be devoured by wolves), or in acts of benevolence to the surrounding poor, with the money that one of his children had robbed the poor woman of, who was weeping in great anguish for the loss of her seven children, slaughtered by mistake by their own father.

This is truly another pretty example for children. A father and mother (of noble blood too) encouraging a young child in thieving, and at once, without hesitation, appropriating to themselves the produce of his robbery!!!

And then, as to "Puss in Boots," when I came to look carefully at that story, I felt compelled to re-write it, and alter the character of it to a certain extent; for, as it stood, the tale was a succession of successful falsehoods — a clever lesson in lying! — a system of imposture rewarded by the greatest worldly advantages! A useful lesson, truly, to be impressed upon the minds of children! And here comes a serious question for consideration: If there is a powerful effect produced upon youthful minds by Fairy Tales, what has been the effect of such instances of grossness, vulgarity, and deceit as I have here pointed out? Little boys and girls are sometimes naughty, and unfortunately sometimes very naughty, when grown up. May it not be possible, I ask, that the simplicity, purity, and innocence which Mr. Dickens is so anxious to preserve may have had some influence here? At any rate, parents and guardians will agree with me that as the first impressions upon a child's mind are those which last the longest, it is therefore most important that these impressions should be as pure as possible, and, if possible, morally useful to them through life; and this object I have had in view when I introduced some of my "doctrines." And what are these doctrines and opinions? Aye! What I have done? Where is the offence? Why, I have endeavoured to inculcate at the earliest age, a HORROR of drunkenness and a recommendation of total abstinence from all INTOXICATING LIQUORS, which, if carried out universally, would not only do away with DRUNKENNESS ENTIRELY, but also with a large amount of POVERTY, MISERY, DISEASE, and DREADFUL CRIMES; also A DETESTATION OF GAMBLING, and a LOVE OF ALL THAT IS VIRTUOUS AND GOOD, and an endeavour to impress on every one the necessity, importance, and justice of EVERY child in the land receiving a useful and religious education. And I would here ask in fairness, what harm can possibly be done to Fairy literature by such re-writing or editing as this? more particularly as I have been most careful in clearly working out all the wild poetical parts and faithfully preserving all the important features of each tale, so that all the wonderful parts are given that so astonish and delight children, but in what I hope a more readable form, quite as entertaining, and, I trust, somewhat more useful.

This is the sum and substance of the letter alluded to, which was supposed to be written by Hop-'o-my-Thumb, but which of course was written by

Your obedient servant,
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

[Kim]

An example:


Frontispiece: "The Father proposes to lose the Children!!!"

George Cruikshank

1853

Relevant passage in the Brothers Grimm original

After the father and mother had grieved some time, they thought that as they could contrive no other way to live they must somehow get rid of their children. One night when the boys were gone to bed, and the fagot-maker and his wife were sitting over a few lighted sticks, to warm themselves, the husband sighed deeply, and said: "You see, my dear, we cannot maintain our children any longer, and to see them die of hunger before my eyes is what I could never bear. I will, therefore, to-morrow morning take them to the forest, and leave them in the thickest part of it, so that they will not be able to find their way back: this will be very easy; for while they amuse themselves with tying up the fagots, we need only slip away when they are looking some other way."

"Ah, husband!" cried the poor wife, "you cannot, no, you never can consent to be the death of your own children."

The husband in vain told her to think how very poor they were.

The wife replied "that this was true, to be sure; but if she was poor, she was still their mother"; and then she cried as if her heart would break. At last she thought how shocking it would be to see them starved to death before their eyes, so she agreed to what her husband had said, and then went sobbing to bed.

Relevant passage from Cruikshank (1853)

One night, after they had said their prayers, and she had put them to bed (and when, she thought, they were all asleep), the father came home and sat down by the side of his wife before the fire, and then began to tell her all the news about the scarcity of all sorts of food, and that he was unable any longer to get bread either for themselves or the children, and that they must, therefore, all starve to death. There was, to be sure, just enough for her and himself for a couple of days, but there was none for the boys; and as it would be a shocking sight to see them all starving, he proposed to his wife that they should take the children out with them in the morning when he went to cut fuel , and that they should leave the children in the great forest.

"No, indeed," cried the tender mother, "I shall do no such thing! If the poor children are to die, I will die with them." But the father insisted that it should be done, got quite angry, and talked so loud that he woke little Hop-o' my-Thumb, who was a very light sleeper, so he sat up in bed and heard all the talk; and after a great deal of crying and opposition, the mother at last consented. . . .

Commentary

"Hop-O'-My-Thumb" was originally told by the French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703) in his Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals, subtitled, Tales of Mother Goose. In this fairytale the youngest of seven brothers from a poor woodcutter's family uses his superior wisdom to keep his siblings safe from an ogre with unusual footwear. Toledo Museum, "Story-Telling in Miniature."

Eliminating much of the direct discourse, Cruikshank emphasizes the scarcity of food as only part of the "Count's" motivation; when he had been drinking, remarks Cruikshank, the Countess knew that "it was no use arguing with him when he was in that state". The immediacy of the conversation is emphasized by the illustration six pages earlier in which, underneath the banner The Father proposes to lose the Children!!! the long-haired, bearded father points at the sleeping children. Cruikshank's
illustrations for the first English translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales were praised widely, but his own rewriting of fairytales was criticized, most prominently by Charles Dickens. This was not due to the quality of the illustrations, but because, in line with his temperance beliefs, Cruikshank rewrote aspects of the fairytales to warn the reader against the evils of alcohol. Thus, for instance, the preparations for Cinderella's marriage include the court throwing all alcohol in the palace on a bonfire; and in "Jack and the Beanstalk," the giant is an alcoholic. Dickens, a friend of Cruikshank, was outraged at what he considered to be a betrayal of the essence of fairytales and, in protest he published an essay in his weekly magazine Household Words entitled "Frauds on the Fairies" in protest (1853).

Alcoholics populate the pages of Cruikshank's Fairy Tales: both the Count and the Ogre in "Hop-o' My-Thumb" are irascible and unreasonable because of two much drinking, and must be mollified by their long-suffering wives.

The brilliant visual satirist George Cruikshank published more than 6,000 graphic works, though he was most known during his lifetime for his book illustrations for popular authors of the day. His artwork included caricatures, social and political satires, pamphlets, drawings, and self-published books. He was self-educated and self-trained as an artist and had a strong and idiosyncratic personality. Later in life he became involved in the Temperance Movement, after which his art became even more focused on social reform. In the mid-1800s Cruikshank rewrote four fairy tales — "Cinderella [and the Glass Slipper]," "The History of Jack and the Beanstalk," "Puss-in-Boots," and "Hop-O'-My-Thumb [and the Seven-League Boots]" — and published them with his illustrations in George Cruikshank's Fairy Library [1853-65].

"Hop-O'-My-Thumb" was originally told by the French author Charles Perrault (1628–1703) in his Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals, subtitled, Tales of Mother Goose [whom Cruikshank depicts in the title-page vignette]. In this fairytale the youngest of seven brothers from a poor woodcutter's family uses his superior wisdom to keep his siblings safe from an ogre with unusual footwear. — Toledo Museum, "George Cruikshank's "Hop-O'-My-thumb." — Story-Telling in Miniature.

Cruikshank may have borrowed the concept of showing different incidents in the plot sequence simultaneously from John Leech in The Chimes (1844), a strategy evident in both Sir Joseph Bowley's​ and Richard and Margaret. In other words, the presentation of images as if they are occurring at the same time rather than sequentially prepares the reader for encountering them in the text, and enables the reader to see the images in a cause-and-effect relationship rather than discretely. In the Cruikshank frontispiece similarly, the father's proposing to lose the children in the woods and his doing so afterwards are presented simultaneously, while the​ other threat to the children, the Ogre sandwiched in between caption banners, leers at the reader from ​the upper register, although he makes his entrance much later in the story. If the father had not persuaded the mother to abandon the children in the forest, Hop would not have had to save his brothers from the Ogre, who, like the father, is an alcoholic. Thus, the illustrator's ​ non-sequential​ presentation suggests that the events depicted are causally related, although the reader is not aware of​the connection between the dancing children, the parents in earnest conversation, and the​cannibalistic giant.

The parents surreptitiously depart as the children are focused on their dancing in the Cruikshank frontispiece. In the telling of the story by the Grimms, the parents slip away as before, but this time Hop's scheme​to lead the boys safely back home fails:

It was not long before they all set out, and their parents took care to lead them into the very thickest and darkest part of the forest. They then slipped away by a by-path as before, and left the children by themselves again. All this did not give Hop-o'-my-Thumb any concern, for he thought himself quite sure of getting back by means of the crumbs that he had dropped by the way; but when he came to look for them he found that not a crumb was left, for the birds had eaten them all up.

The poor children were now sadly off, for the farther they went the harder it was for them to get out of the forest. At last night came on, and the noise of the wind among the trees seemed to them like the howling of wolves, so that every moment they thought they should be eaten up. They hardly dared to speak a word, or to move a limb, for​fear. Soon after there came a heavy rain which wetted them to the very skin, and made the ground so slippery that they fell down at almost every step and got dirty all over.

In the Cruikshank re-telling, the children are not merely gathering wood, a scene which would be rather prosaic (and which would, moreover, seem to be a repetition of the scenario in "Hansel and Grettel"), but are dancing in a ring with Hop in the centre. In other words, Cruikshank reshapes the story for the sake of illustration, and expands this section considerably in order to heighten the suspense:

At length they entered the wood, and the father began chopping away, and the Countess and the children gathering and binding. The Count kept his wife close by him all the time, in order that they might be ready to set off [at] the first opportunity; but whenever he was about to steal away, he always found that little Hop was alongside of him. So, in order to get rid of Master Hop, he told the boys that might leave off work for a little while, and have a bit of play; and he proposed that they should join hands and form a ring, and put little Hop in the middle and dance round him. The boys were all delighted with this game except little Hop, who tried hard to get out of the ring, but his brothers would not let him; and thus, while they were all dancing and shouting, the Count took the opportunity of slipping away, dragging the Countess along with him. The poor mother, although she had determined to go back for the children, was, nevertheless, fearful that they might be lost or come to some harm. So she began to cry, and beg of her husband to let her go back for the children; but he had been draining his bottle, and only gave her harsh words and made her go on quickly, in order that they might get entirely away from the children.

Little Hop-o' my-Thumb's brothers kept on dancing away until they were tired and out of breath, and then they all sat down to rest themselves. But when they looked round and could not see either their father or mother, they jumped up and ran about to look for them; but little Hop stood where he was, for he had noticed which way his parents had gone off. But, oh! when his brothers could not find their parents anywhere, they all looked at one another, and said, "Oh dear, we are lost! oh dear, where's father and mother? Whatever shall we do? — Cruikshank

The cartoonist shows the light and comforting world of the children's home as supported by a grotesque tree with gnarled, twisting arms and two skull-like faces, and a dark, deciduous forest from which the anxious father and reluctant mother (dressed fashionably in the mediaeval idiom as a "count" and "countess") are escaping towards the light at the left margin.

[Kim]

From My Father as I Recall Him by Mamie Dickens:

My father wrote always with a quill pen and blue ink, and never, I think, used a lead pencil. His handwriting was considered extremely difficult to read by many people, but I never found it so. In his manuscripts there were so many erasures, and such frequent interlineations that a special staff of compositors was used for his work, but this was not on account of any illegibility in his handwriting. The manuscripts are most of them, exhibited at the South Kensington Museum in “the Forster Collection,” and they all show I think, the extreme care and fastidiousness of the writer, and his ever-constant desire to improve upon and simplify his original sentence. His objection to the use of a lead pencil was so great that even his personal memoranda, such as his lists of guests for dinner parties, the arrangement of tables and menus, were always written in ink. For his personal correspondence he used blue note paper, and signed his name in the left-hand corner of the envelope. After a morning’s close work he was sometimes quite pre-occupied when he came into luncheon. Often, when we were only our home party at “Gad’s Hill,” he would come in, take something to eat in a mechanical way—he never ate but a small luncheon—and would return to his study to finish the work he had left, scarcely having spoken a word in all this time. Again, he would come in, having finished his work, but looking very tired and worn. Our talking at these times did not seem to disturb him, though any sudden sound, as the dropping of a spoon, or the clinking of a glass, would send a spasm of pain across his face.

[Peter]

Kim wrote: "From My Father as I Recall Him by Mamie Dickens:

My father wrote always with a quill pen and blue ink, and never, I think, used a lead pencil. His handwriting was considered extremely difficult to..."

Dickens did put his “return” address on the bottom left of the envelope which was the common practice in the 19C England. I have often wondered just how effecient the post office was. If a letter did go astray how did the receiving post office know where to re-route the letter if they did not recognize the name of the sender? The answer lies in the fact that the name of the post office from where the letter was sent was used to cancel the stamp. One would have to have faith that the cancellation of the stamp would show clearly. Thus, a letter from Gad’s Hill would be cancelled at the Rochester postal station. In Rochester, the postal authorities would know where Dickens lived.

Things would be a bit more complicated for lesser known people in the larger cities.

[Tristram]

Another question in this context could be, When were envelopes introduced? I always thought that Victorians, at least the early ones, always folded their letter in a special way, sealed it, and voilá this was the envelope.

I also read someplace that Dickens strongly advised against re-writing a MS into a final, more readable version because he said that if a MS is too easy to read, at the printer's it gets into the hands of the apprentice or somebody who has little experience, which will result in a lot of typos and errors in the printed version. A MS which is tricky to read, however, always finds its way into the hands of the most experienced typesetter. Very clever reasoning ;-)

[John]

Kim wrote: "From My Father as I Recall Him by Mamie Dickens:

My father wrote always with a quill pen and blue ink, and never, I think, used a lead pencil. His handwriting was considered extremely difficult to..."

This is a wonderful paragraph. You rarely see such close-up and personal observations about great writers in the midst of their creating, and this paragraph in my view captures that spectacularly.

[Kim]

Tristram wrote: "Another question in this context could be, When were envelopes introduced?"

Here you go:


It was in the 1800’s when envelopes were an extra piece of paper that would be wrapped around the letter and charged as an extra piece of paper when mailing. Only the wealthy could afford this second charge, while most commoners would simply fold the letter into an envelope and seal it with an adhesive. The address could then be written on the blank back of the letter.


It wasn’t until 1837 when Rowland Hill published “Post Office Reform” that paper envelopes were created. He stated that a “physical stamp containing a gum wash and a prepaid penny wrapper were to be developed.” Local businesses created these by cutting and hand folding an envelope template.
This was a turning point for the history of envelopes. The demand for envelopes quickly grew in England after the acceptance of universal postage. No longer could the envelope manufacturing companies keep up by hand folding and cutting envelopes. Edwin Hill is credited with designing the first envelope folding machine in 1840. His work would be short lived after a number of other envelope folding machines surfaced in 1951. These machines featured a vacuum which would transfer the envelopes and could produce 240 envelopes per hour.

It wasn’t until the invention of the self-gumming envelope machine that envelope production really took off. A man by the name of James Green Arnold took the envelope folding machine to the next level when he added a brush that would apply the gum to the envelopes seal. This step was previously done by hand. Unfortunately Arnold’s design was never put into production. It wasn’t until two brothers by the name of D. Wheeler Swift and Henry Swift took Arnold’s design and perfected it. In 1876 the Swift Chain Dryer Machine was born. One of the main difference in this machine was that it was constructed of metal, not wood, like the Arnold design.

[Tristram]

Thanks, Kim! It's really interesting to learn about this for me. I knew that letters were an expensive thing in the old days and that therefore many people, in order to save paper and postage, even turned the sheet they wrote on and would write new lines over the already written ones, this time at an angle of 90°.

[Kim]

Charles Dickens is supposed to have contributed to Punch in the year 1849 an article entitled "Dreadful Hardships Endured by the Shipwrecked Crew of the London, Chiefly for Want of Water"—a criticism on the scandalous condition of the suburban water supply. Mr. F. G. Kitton has examined the original manuscript preserved by Mrs. Mark Lemon in her autograph album. Mr. Hatton found it among Lemon's papers, bearing on the outside, in the Editor's handwriting, the inscription, "Dickens' only contribution to Punch!" But the alleged contribution is absolutely undiscoverable in the pages of the paper. The explanation is, in Mr. Kitten's words, that "about the time the manuscript was written, several pictorial allusions to foul water in suburban London appeared in Punch, which bear directly upon the subject of Dickens's protest, and it is surmised that the Editor, on the receipt of Dickens's contribution, considered that greater prominence would be given to the matter to which they referred by means of a cartoon than by a few lines of text. Hence we find the rebuke enforced by the pencil of the artist, instead of the mere literary lashing which Dickens intended to inflict upon that particular public grievance." It may safely be suggested that this was the only occasion on which, after his reputation was made, Dickens was ever "declined with thanks." This MS., it may be added, was sold at Sotheby's on the 9th of July, 1889, and was knocked down for £16.

The curious fact remains that Dickens, who was the intimate friend of Punch's Editor for the best part of their working lives, whose publishers were Punch's proprietors as well as the publishers and part proprietors of the "Daily News," which Dickens edited, never contributed to Punch, nor was in any way identified with it, save, indeed, with its Dinner-Table. At that function he was at one time a frequent visitor, and also was he present when at the Prince of Wales's wedding a brilliant company assembled at the publishing office to see the cortège go by. It was on that occasion that Sothern, one of the invited guests, arrived on the other side of the way, but, owing to the denseness of the crowd, was utterly unable to force his way across. His friends caught sight of him, and pointed to a policeman. Sothern took the hint. "Get me through," he whispered, "and I'll give you a sovereign." "Afraid I can't," said the man regretfully, "but I'll try." A prodigious effort was made, but unsuccessfully, loud protests going up from the packed crowd. Sothern was at his wits' end; he could not bear the thought of losing such a dinner in such a company, but his invention did not fail him. "Look here," he said to the constable; "put your handcuffs on me, drag me through, and land me at that door, and I'll give you two pounds." The man seized the idea and Sothern together; he slipped on the handcuffs, and with a loud "Make way, there!" dragged his prize through a mass of humanity that was only too happy to assist the law as far as might be; and after a few moments of crushing, pushing, and general rough handling, the disheveled comedian was successfully landed at Punch's publishing door. "You'll find the money in my waistcoat pocket," said Sothern. But he did not observe that, after the policeman had secured it, a stealthy addition was made to the money in the constabular palm by one of his Punch friends; and only when the man disappeared in the crowd did Sothern realize that a timely bribe had left him to mix with his friends for the rest of the day and to eat his dinner with hands firmly secured in his manacles!

It is said that Dickens held aloof from Punch on account of Thackeray's success in it. If so, the jealousy must have been all on Dickens' side; for Thackeray's well-known exclamation, when he hurried into the Punch office and slapped down before Lemon the latest number of "Dombey and Son" containing Paul Dombey's death, "It's stupendous! unsurpassed! There's no writing against such power as this!" was that of a generous and magnanimous man. Bryan Proctor ("Barry Cornwall"), writing to E. Fitzgerald in 1870, said, "I saw a good deal of Thackeray until his death.... I did not observe much jealousy in Thackeray towards Dickens, nor vice versâ. They travelled pretty comfortably on their dusty road together. Each had a quantity of good-nature, and each could afford to be liberal to the other." The probable explanation is that Dickens simply did not care to interrupt his triumphant career of novelist in order to write occasional articles in a paper in which anonymity was the rule and rejection so painfully possible.

But a serious quarrel broke out between Dickens and the Punch men, publishers and Editor alike—a quarrel wholly on Dickens's side. So great had been his intimacy and his influence that he could cause the insertion of a cartoon and even bring about the alteration of the Dinner day. But now, on the unhappy differences between himself and his wife, trouble arose between old friends. Mark Lemon had naturally leaned towards the wife, from chivalry and sense of right, and the publishers preferred to take no share in a quarrel in which they certainly had no concern. On May 28, 1859, the whole of the back page of Punch was given to an advertisement of "Once a Week," which was to follow "Household Words," and to an explanation of the position of affairs between "Mr. Charles Dickens and his late Publishers." The following paragraphs are all that it is needful to quote from the statement:—

"So far as 1836, Bradbury and Evans had business relations with Mr. Dickens, and, in 1844, an agreement was entered into by which they acquired an interest in all the works he might write, or in any periodical he might originate, during a term of seven years. Under this agreement Bradbury and Evans became possessed of a joint, though unequal, interest with Mr. Dickens in 'Household Words,' commenced in 1850. Friendly relations had simultaneously sprung up between them, and they were on terms of close intimacy in 1858, when circumstances led to Mr. Dickens's publication of a statement, on the subject of his conjugal differences, in various newspapers, including 'Household Words' of June 12th.

"The public disclosure of these differences took most people by surprise, and was notoriously the subject of comments, by no means complimentary to Mr. Dickens himself, as regarded the taste of this proceeding. On June 17th, however, Bradbury and Evans learnt from a common friend, that Mr. Dickens had resolved to break off his connection with them, because this statement was not printed in the number of Punch published the day preceding—in other words, because it did not occur to Bradbury and Evans to exceed their legitimate functions as proprietors and publishers, and to require the insertion of statements on a domestic and painful subject in the inappropriate columns of a comic miscellany. No previous request for the insertion of this statement had been made either to Bradbury and Evans, or to the editor of Punch, and the grievance of Mr. Dickens substantially amounted to this, that Bradbury and Evans did not take upon themselves, unsolicited, to gratify an eccentric wish by a preposterous action.... Bradbury and Evans replied that they did not, and could not, believe that this was the sole cause of Mr. Dickens's altered feeling towards them; but they were assured that it was the sole cause, and that Mr. Dickens desired to bear testimony to their integrity and zeal as his publishers, but that his resolution was formed, and nothing could alter it."

So this foolish estrangement went on until, years afterwards, Clarkson Stanfield on his death-bed besought Dickens to resume his friendship with the man with whom, after all, he had had no cause of quarrel. So Dickens sent to Lemon (whom he doubtless suspected of having written the publishers' damaging defense just quoted) a kindly letter when "Uncle Mark" appeared as Falstaff before the public, and when Stanfield was buried the two men clasped hands over his open grave; and later on, when Dickens died, some of the most touching and beautiful verses that ever appeared in Punch were devoted to his memory.